The Loch Ness monster, a gnome, some naked fairies, an Autobot, a whole lot of castles, two mermaids and a plastic flamingo with one eye: - the magical year that was
How is this the first blog post of 2016? And how am I only reviewing 2015 now? Well, there’s an explanation for that. I actually spent weeks editing together a very entertaining 2015 highlights video - probably one of the most entertaining 2015 travel highlights videos involving the overuse of a plastic flamingo on the whole of the internet - that you would probably only watch by accident when it pops up on your Facebook home page because, though you’ve been meaning to, you haven’t turned off that ‘autoplay’ feature yet. But then I had problems with the copyright restrictions of the song that I edited it to. Man, I miss the good old days when Youtube was the Wild West and you were forgiven for copyright infringements just by acknowledging them. I will have to find an older song with more relaxed restrictions to infringe on for a less awesome edit of the video, …but it might take me a few more months.
I’ve also been working on some articles for an actual travel publication because, well, sometimes people pay me to write. (More on that later.)
In the meantime, here are the 2015 highlights of Rodrigo and I (in photographic form):
Our first stop was Tampa. Tampa’s nice.
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| Tampa, Florida |
Then we went to Belize and didn’t get mugged!
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| Belize |
In Honduras, I got to check ‘getting arrested’ off my bucket list. We also snorkelled. Win-win.
We High School Musicalled at the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben in Costa Maya.
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| Chacchoben, Mexico |
We went to Cozumel and searched for the Mexican scuba-diving instructor with the crazy blue eyes at the place with the name I still can’t pronounce (described in my “What’s with the Flamingo?” section). And failed.
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| Cozumel, Mexico |
We went to South America for four whole hours!
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| Cartagena, Colombia |
We went through the Panama Canal.
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| Panama |
We found the way to San Jose.
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| Costa Rica |
We did our first ever transatlantic cruise, earning ourselves anchor tattoos that we will probably never get.
We shared a cabin with a bicycle and a tree (at different times).
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| Cabin bicycle |
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| Cabin tree (and Rodrigo) |
After consuming beer in Germany, and other local er… (things that make you the opposite of sober) in Amsterdam on some of our other travels, Rodrigo added ‘drinking vodka in Russia’ to his list of dodgy stuff like that. He’s so gangsta.
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| St. Petersburg, Russia |
We bought cool stuff in Helsinki.
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| Helsinki, Finland |
We experienced ABBA, the Museum.
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| ABBA: the Museum, Stockholm |
We went to two sunken ship museums.
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| The Titanic Experience, Cobh, Ireland |
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| The Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden |
We fell in love with Rotterdam.
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| Market Hall / "Markthal" |
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| Oude Haven |
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| Erasmus Bridge |
We went to a point further north than the northernmost point of Europe in the Arctic Circle.
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| Nordkapp, Norway |
We went close-ish to the Southernmost point of Africa, but not really.
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| The Twelve Apostles, Cape Town |
Rodrigo narrowly survived being compacted and recycled in Germany.
(We don’t really have a picture for this, but visualise terror and then relief on my face. He put up a brave front the whole time - well, he’s plastic - so his expression doesn’t really change.)
I got my name up at the No Name Bar. (That may not mean anything to you, but any crew member who has ever been on a ship that goes to Cozumel will nod knowingly while reading this point.)
We ate an obscene amount of cookies. (Well, I did)
We went to this cabin party:
(That’s a lot of people in a confined space right there.)
We went to frikkin Disney World! - All four parks even.
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| The Magic Kingdom |
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| EPCOT |
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| Hollywood Studios |
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| The Animal Kingdom |
We went to Universal Studios too.
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| Universal Studios |
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| Islands of Adventure |
We saw a lot of castles and palaces…
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| Dover Castle, England |
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| Cinderella's Castle, Disney World |
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| Catherine's Palace, Russia |
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| Rosenborg Castle, Denmark |
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| Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland |
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| Edinburgh Castle, Scotland |
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| Dublin Castle, Ireland |
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| Stockholm Palace, Sweden |
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| Kadriorg Palace, Estonia |
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| Winter Palace / Hermitage Museum, Russia |
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| Schwerin Palace, Germany |
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| Hogwarts Castle, Universal Studios |
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| Peterhof Palace, Russia |
…and a lot of churches (but that’s a separate blog)
We experienced the World’s weirdest museum exhibit.
(Did you know that the Vikings used moss for toilet paper? And did you really need to?)
We met both The Little Mermaids!
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| Copenhagen, Denmark |
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| The Magic Kingdom |
We made friends with ‘Gnome’.
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| Leknes, Norway |
We went to Norway and looked so hard for trolls that Rodrigo lost an eye.
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| Honningsvag, Norway |
We didn't find Arendale in Norway, but we did see Anna and Elsa from far away.
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| The Magic Kingdom |
We went in search of dassies in Cape Town and failed, but found an awesome palm tree that looks like a pineapple.
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| Cape Town, South Africa |
We also failed in our searches to find leprechauns and unicorns, but we did find the mythical reindeer (who look a little different to how they appear on Christmas cards) and the Loch Ness Monster.
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| Nordkapp, Norway |
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| Loch Ness, Scotland |
Rodrigo found his family and I found my prince …and then misplaced him.
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| Costa Maya, Mexico |
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| Costa Maya, Mexico |
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| Disney's Hollywood Studios |
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| Gram's Hostel, Tampa |
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| Tallinn, Estonia |
We also discovered a sanctuary for naked fairies and stoned hippies and fascinating people-watching in Copenhagen.
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| Christiania, Copenhagen |
We met influential people like Micky Mouse, William Wallace and Megatron.
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| EPCOT Centre, Orlando |
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| Edinburgh, Scotland |
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| Universal Studios, Orlando |
We got to scratch a lot of countries off our new scratch-off world map (yes, we’re still working on Russia)
and Rodrigo had his photo taken at a lot of fascinating landmarks.
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| Nyhavn, Copenhagen |
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| Chacchoben, Mexico |
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| Cube Houses, Rotterdam |
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| Jurassic Coast, England |
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| Panama Canal |
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| Disney World |
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| The Berlin Wall |
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| Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland |
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| Helsinki Cathedral |
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The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood,
St. Petersburg |
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| Peterhof, St. Petersburg |
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| Brandenburg Gate, Berlin |
As for 2016…
Rodrigo and I Escape later this week for six months on the world’s fifth-biggest cruise ship, all 20 decks of it! (Yikes.) She might only be three months old, but she is a big girl. After that, we’ll be headed off to Zimbabwe for a family wedding, where we intend to spread the joy of Gangnam Style and continue the quest to bring back the Macarena. After that, who knows?
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